I have been on 4chan since at least '05, according to my files. The way people write about it is just ... such a Rorschach blot. Just as an example, that "redeeming" word you used, I would have said "damning." I watched the spin machine rev up like a centrifuge before that really hit the press, I read the ZoePost early on and thought Depression Quest was just awful before I knew word one about who wrote it.
There's so many boards, each with its own culture, but people get out of it whatever bugbear they desire.
Depression quest being good or not, being only for some kind of person or all is completely irrelevant. And should be irrelevant to anything that happened after.
Even if it would be the worst game in the world. Cause the really normal response to and small game you don't like is to not play it and maybe write a bad review. Not what happened.
Correct, but also correct that afterward, you could not critique the game at all without being "a literal Nazi." The journos (as shown in their private mailing list) closed ranks amazingly quickly. I watched perfectly reasonable critiques get removed from comment sections before the comment sections were inevitably shut down "to promote better discourse."
As usual, it isn't the crime, it's the coverup that gets you, and GamerGate was a great example of that.
There is literally no wonder they "closed ranks" given crap that was going on. And I know, because I personally seen that crap. The level of asshollery going on in general absolutely makes understandable that someone would go trigger happy.
And no, the whole issue was not about quality of single indie twine game. That is just nonsense.
It was a attempt by obviously outsiders to establish cultural dominance in a sphere, where they were neither welcome nor wanted.
Call it SJW-Colonialism and it was repelled by the natives.
To go to battle to tell people what they should accept as their escapism, from up high, was a new low.
There's so many boards, each with its own culture, but people get out of it whatever bugbear they desire.